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But the apology came soon after a second video emerged with a similar edit of Trump’s address to supporters who refused to accept the outcome of the November 2020 election and marched on Congress on January 6 the following year, before Joe Biden was sworn in as the next president.
The Telegraph of London, which revealed a dossier of concerns about BBC editorial standards over the past fortnight, reported on Thursday night in Britain (Friday morning, AEDT) that a BBC Newsnight program in 2022 also edited the same address.
Donald Trump speaks at a January 6, 2021 rally protesting against the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.Credit: AP
The Newsnight editing differed from the Panorama documentary, but also emphasised the “fight like hell” phrase in relation to Trump urging supporters to walk to the Capitol.
BBC chairman Samir Shah wrote to British MPs on Monday to apologise for the edited video, but Trump and his lawyers responded hours later by demanding more action and putting the financial estimate on their defamation claim.
That came after BBC director-general Tim Davie and news chief executive Deborah Turness announced their resignations last Sunday, although they remain in their positions while the broadcaster searches for their replacements.
Trump attorney Alejandro Brito wrote to the BBC on Monday to demand it retract the “false, defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” it had aired, apologise for what it had done and “appropriately compensate” his client for the harm it had caused.
In a claim filed in Florida, Brito set a deadline of this Friday at 5pm UK time (9am Saturday AEDT) for the BBC to comply.
Brito said the president would file legal action for no less than $US1 billion in damages – $1.5 billion – if the requests were not met.
The apology issued on the BBC website also makes it clear the broadcaster has retracted the documentary and the edited video, meeting some of the conditions set out by Trump’s lawyer.
There has been no mention of compensation for the president.
Spliced footage
The edited video on the Panorama edition titled Trump: A Second Chance? showed the president speaking to supporters on January 6, 2021 and urging them to go to the Capitol with him to show they believed the election the previous November had been stolen and that Joe Biden had not won.
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and I’ll be there with you. And we fight. We fight like hell,” Trump said in the video aired on the BBC. These two statements that Trump uttered were actually made almost 50 minutes apart, at different stages of a lengthy address.
In the Newsnight program, the edit of the video also combined remarks made 50 minutes apart in the January 6 address, although it included some words left out of the Panorama documentary.
The president’s remarks on Newsnight program: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol. And we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women. And we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
Trump urged supporters to “fight like hell” in his address on January 6, but he did so at the end of the speech, and it appeared to be a general remark rather than one that called for a fight at the Capitol.
Both BBC programs cut a moment from Trump’s address in which he asked the crowd to go “peacefully” to the Capitol.
“We’re going to walk down to the Capitol, and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” he said in the full address.
“And we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. Because you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated, lawfully slated.
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
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